FRIDAY-SATURDAY

Marilyn's back: We can’t get enough of Marilyn Monroe and the Rat Pack in this desert, even though Marilyn didn't own a home here, and the Rat Pack rarely roamed together in this desert.

Marilyn Monroe, seen here between scenes on the set of "Something's Got to Give," is being depicted ...more

Marilyn Monroe, seen here between scenes on the set of "Something's Got to Give," is being depicted in a Frank Furino play at the Indian Wells Theater in Palm Desert.

Lawrence Schiller

Cal State University, San Bernardino, Palm Desert is doing a month-long tribute to the Rat Pack and they’re now presenting local writer Frank Furino’s stage fantasy of what could have caused Monroe's death in “Marilyn, Madness and Me” at the school’s Indian Wells Theater.

I saw the show’s premiere in Los Angeles in 2013 and said at the time it was “an intriguing fantasy that speculates on many rumors about legendary events in Marilyn Monroe's life and fits them into a pat, almost plausible hypothesis."

The Rat Pack celebration continues March 16-17 with a tribute show to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., featuring a live band, and March 23 with a celebrity home tour and cocktails at Melvyn's, where Sinatra held his pre-wedding party in 1976. And watch for the world premiere of "Becoming Marilyn Monroe" at the next American Documentary Film Festival April 6-14.

FRIDAY

Friday: Zack Huskey of Dali's Llama at The Hood Bar & Pizza

Friday: Zack Huskey of Dali's Llama at The Hood Bar & Pizza

Gerry Maceda/Special to The Desert Sun

Rock reunion: The old guard of desert rock will unite this weekend to salute one of its most durable bands. Dali's Llama, led by singer-guitarist Zach Huskie, will celebrate 25 years of creating original music with a rare assemblage of desert rock pioneers.

Joining them will be the Rubber Snake Charmers, an all-improv band headed by Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson, who hosted the first garage sessions of Kyuss, from which Brant Bjork and Josh Homme sprang.

Opening will be a reunion of Zezo Zece Zadfraq and the Dunebuggy Attack Battalion, featuring Sean Wheeler, who hosted parties for Lalli in his garage. Joining him for some “grebo rock” will be original 1980s members Dan Lapham on guitar and Scott Brooks on bass, and Sean’s young son, Desmond Wheeler, on keyboards.

We’ll also see Decon, a Coachella Valley punk band formed in 1995 after the break-up of Kyuss and fellow punk pioneers Unsound, featuring such legends of the desert generator parties as Herb Lienau, Brian Maloney, Billy Cordell and Rob Peterson.

Completing the bill will be the Hellions, who have been playing desert rock since 1998.

Dali’s Llama are worthy headliners. Huskie is a versatile guitarist who can shred and their songwriting has improved over the years. You can tell because the band has consistently recorded new material and their CDs are easy to find. Huskie works in the Palm Springs Public Library and most his band’s albums are on display there.

DAILY

One difference: Buy a $50 ground pass, providing access to non-reserved seating areas in the daytime, and stay through the night, and you could get near enough to see history being made by the likes of Serena Williams, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic.

The BNP Paribas creates a fun festival atmosphere. Many of the best seats are sold out, but at least you can watch the highlights on television or desertsun.com.

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

Ready to rumble: “West Side Story” has such a corny premise, it made for one of Norm McDonald's best parodies on “Saturday Night Live” – as a gang leader who can’t believe his juvenile delinquent cronies want to break into a ballet in the middle of a rumble.

But, the music by Leonard Bernstein, the lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and the “Romeo and Juliet”-inspired book by Arthur Laurents are so brilliant, it stands up 60 years later as a masterpiece. With ethnic and racial tensions as strained today as they were in the late '50s, it seems even more relevant just because it’s still relevant.

Now McCallum Theatre staffer Chad Hilligus, a former member of the Ten Tenors who produced the wonderful 95th birthday tribute to Carol Channing two years ago, is producing and directing a concert version of “West Side Story” with a 40-piece Los Angeles-based orchestra and singer-actors from the Broadway and national touring productions of the show.

Matthew Hydzik, who starred in Broadway’s “West Side Story,” “Side Show” and “Grease,” is featured as Tony and Ali Ewoldt, currently starring in Broadway’s “Phantom of the Opera,” plays Maria. An inside source even squealed that our favorite "Love Boat" captain, Gavin MacLeod, has a small part.

SATURDAY

Saturday: Kenny G at Fantasy Springs

Saturday: Kenny G at Fantasy Springs

Provided by McCallum Theatre

Stayin' smooth: Kenny G epitomizes smooth jazz. He’s sold more than 75 million records worldwide with instrumentals, which is amazing. He’s topped Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Chart more than a dozen times and his 1986 recording, “Songbird,” was a crossover smash.

Kenny G is a personable performer who can send an audience to la-la land with his beautiful melodies. But, if you prefer contemporary jazz with vocals, check out Steve Tyrell Tuesday at the McCallum. If you prefer straight-ahead jazz, catch drummer Joe Labarbera and his quintet Saturday at Pete Carlson’s Golf & Tennis in Palm Desert.

SATURDAY

Disco lives: Disco never died, it just evolved into today’s house and techno music. So, listening to disco music isn’t just an exercise in nostalgia, its an exploration of the roots of today’s music. And this weekend’s Rancho Mirage Music in the Park Series takes you back to the roots of disco.

Janice–Marie Johnson and Perry Kibble started A Taste of Honey before the disco era, in 1971, but had one of the genre’s biggest hits in 1978 with “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” earning them a Best New Artist of the Year Grammy and scaring the hell out of rock lovers who saw that as the beginning of the end of culture as we know it.

Maxine Nightingale is a British R&B singer who was featured in the West End productions of “Hair,” “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Godspell” in the late 1960s and early ‘70s and went on to have her own disco hit with "Right Back Where We Started From" in 1975.

Kibble died in 1999 and now Johnson and Nightingale are teaming up as a disco duo, which for millennials could mean taking house music right back where it started from.